【 Thank you for choosing the Golden Peacock, 5-star resort and casino. You are currently registered as a WILDCARD in our system.
Due to a high volume of check-ins, temporary accommodations have been made in our parking garage for all new arrivals. We aim to have all guests moved into their reserved rooms as soon as possible. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience!
All are invited to There Is No Tomorrow, a Phoenix Casino soiree to celebrate our beloved guests. The festivities will begin at 1800 hours on January 20th and end at 1800 hours on January 27th. Please look forward to 168 hours of delight.
In an effort to raise happiness and encourage better guest relationships, attendance is required. The house will assist guests that are too shy to appear of their own accord. Please note that black tie attire is mandatory. As always, we hope you enjoy your stay! 】
PARKING GARAGE
ANY CAR IN A STORM
PHOENIX CASINO HALL
WELCOME TO THE NEXT 168 HOURS
Phoenix Casino is a-flutter with activity and packed to the beak with guests. As a famously ever-changing space, the staff would be remiss if they didn't deck the crown jewel of the Golden Peacock out. The casino glitters from top to bottom, shining brighter than diamonds, rubies, sapphires, opals! Party-goers are shiny and glamorous with picture perfect makeup, fluttering gowns, and sharp suits. Card tables are packed and the slot machines are a-ringing as guests play, play, play! Prizes, luxury, booze, attractive people, it's the place that everyone wants to be at.
Those people being dragged inside by some invisible force...? Silly, they were so excited to come that their bodies moved before they realized what was happening. Those are struggles of joy and definitely not the casino's infamous ghost hands dragging unwilling guests to the party at the behest of the house. Look, they're literally hurling their bodies at the card tables with unrestrained glee!
All clocks indicating day hours and night hours have been removed from the casino. Once a guest has entered, their Watch will jam, making it impossible to keep track of the time. You don't need to worry about that tonight.
▶ All characters on the TDM are WILDCARDS, which means they have not yet been assigned a card value. Suits will not manifest until characters are accepted into the game.
▶ All TDMs are game canon. This TDM acts as the game's January event.
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▶ The top level directory is for new characters only. We want to make sure new characters are prioritized and receive attention! If you would be interested in a game invitation, you can note that in your comment header. This month we also have an ongoing ATP / EMP where players can connect. Please feel free to utilize this for all of your peafowl needs!
▶ If you aren't satisfied with these prompts, please feel free to check out our LOCATIONS to explore more of the resort!
▶ Smut threads that take place on this TDM can be used for rewards. If both parties in the smut thread join the game, you may retroactively apply the character's initial card values to your 52 bank. If one character does not join the game the thread will not be applicable toward rewards (as that character would not have a card value). The character that does join would still receive a small payout for the encounter. Hopefully it was a fun thread regardless!
▶ We ask you to kindly add content warnings to your threads as appropriate.
▶ If you do not currently have permissions and kinks listed in your character’s journal we suggest leaving a note in your top level of any limits or boundaries for other players to reference.
( she's not sure what she expects to come out of it. as far as propositions go, someone with more experience would probably take more time to ease into it instead of waiting until the door's locked for the awkward rejection, and the no escape. way to go, robin, committing a sex-dungeon-posing-as-a-casino faux pas right out of the gate. no one will ever want to sleep with you.
but it could be worse. it could've gone differently, too, if he'd said no and she would've stayed anyway, let the pieces fall in the appropriate slots where they may otherwise. part of it isn't kindness, because part of her is still disbelieving. if they do this, then what do they really get from it? and what price do they really pay? songstress embroiled in a sex scandal, the headlines would say in the taglines of that pornographic paraphernalia. she thinks she'll pay the price eventually, somewhere down the line. most people do.
and it's still not worth someone else's punishment.
he walks up to her with that honed, respectable veneer of calm, and she offers him the gentle politeness of her full attention, her eyes kept respectfully on his face. he said he was boring, uncharming, and without dignity — and maybe it had been unfair to ask him when she's more than capable of putting that all together, when the chances of his refusal are next to none, with a personality like that. but then, his low, level voice, his hands seeping warmth into the slanting curve of her waist, his own flubbing tongue around a slip that sounds, frankly, subconscious are all interesting. charming. dignified enough.
she smiles at that, her face lighting up with a dust of pink to match how embarrassment slips into both of their mannerisms. mister devil hunter could be colder. mister devil hunter is too kind, and much kinder still, to not tell her his name or maybe even no. )
... Not quite.
( it's a quiet non-answer. her gaze finally drops, regarding him somewhere at collar-level as her hands lift up, popping open the first button of his dress shirt with very little flourish, almost domestic in the gesture as she sets about his previous bland attempt to take his clothes off.
she's going down the row of buttons, anyway, not quickly or slowly but evenly enough that the way she steps forward, how she's just as meticulous about it, might make him feel less like he's being herded back and more like it's just part of the process.
just like a dance, she thinks, with the proper steps to go about it. )
You're just very kind... It makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of it.
( and is that the problem, in the end? it doesn't feel like she's taking advantage of anything except their proximity, when her fingers lift, teasing buttons out of their holes; it doesn't feel like he's afforded her some kind of overextended kindness, when the steady beat of his heart, beneath his shirt, feels just as bared as the fabric that's starting to slip apart with her movements. had he always just been afraid of the same thing? that no one would willingly walk into some kind of agreement, like this, without some measure of pity, kindness, some kind of burden that would fall onto their shoulders? he can't read the expression as well in her face, when she's touching him; mostly that's because he feels thoroughly distracted by the heat that's threatening to pool up into his face at the thought.
the step backwards, and the next, feels like they're tethered together; his fingers flex, squeezing at her waist, and if she's guiding him back towards the bed, he doesn't mind it. doesn't feel like he's on the offensive, but rather, more at her mercy. )
Would it help... ( he starts, then thinks against it---rather than leave his touch at her waist, both of his hands lift, a calloused shadow over the back of her hands; his fingers run over hers, sliding down her knuckles, gripping in at her wrists if only so that he can use the guidance to start encouraging her to pull his shirt tails out of the waist of his slacks. ) ...to tell you that you're pretty?
( no, that sounds juvenile. another embarrassed breath goes through his nose, irritated at himself. )
You're not unattractive. ( that's even worse. he continues. ) You're very attractive. I'm sure you've heard this before.
( his grip loosens; his hands slide, a brief touch along her upper arms before he drops away, leaving the rest of his shirt at her mercy. )
So it isn't 'taking advantage'. ( it feels--a little stupid, saying all this, but it's not going to change anything; it's not like it's some kind of weakness to admit it, or maybe it is, but he's willing to take the loss if it comes to it. ) I'm interested.
( ... somehow, for the blip of that shared awkwardness, it does actually help.
somehow. anyhow. even when, yes, it is a little silly. even when, yes, there are his long fingers caging each of her bird-boned wrists, and somehow she can sense his calluses through the fabric of her gloves as he maneuvers — not ungracefully — to get her to ruck up the fabric of his shirt.
it helps because he's still steady, his heartbeat even, even when hers is somewhere up in her throat. and it especially helps because he keeps running through his words until he trips up, and it tells her that he isn't as impassive as his expression makes him out to be, his cards and consent laid out on the table for her to do with what she will. )
... thank you. Though I'd hoped you were, at least a little.
(that depends, he'd tried teasing once. is the willing participant in the room with us right now?
she must be one in this narrowing space, in the end. her lashes flick down as she trails over the lean muscle of his body, considering the bare sight with soft, sudden attention. her hands drift then, less hesitation and more curiosity as she marks the lighter outline of an old scar, some splotchy keloid where the flesh and blood must have stitched over something terrible, making a path over his bare skin without much warning, without permission, without fanfare. but at least her gloved fingers are soft over the indentations between each of his ribs. there's just no way for her to know if that does anything for him.
well. except the one. )
Otherwise I don't think we'd be in this room together...
( later, if aki were to ask what was done to him, then robin would tell him the truth. that she's no devil, but that she can read his mind, that resonance sometimes feels like the sudden passing of a headache — clearing, clear-mindedness, and a multi-colored sensation like you're light-headed and standing up too quickly.
maybe that only sharpens the sensation of everything else: how she presses her thumbs against the crests of his hipbones until he might try to squirm away, or thinks about it, or literally anything until she digs her fingertips into the junction of his hips instead, guiding him back until his legs finally hit the edge of the bed. )
( ugly scars, bared now with the parting of fabric, feel like shame beneath her feathered touch--the light, airy fabric of her gloves feels almost silken against him, a promise of something that he doesn't deserve, or maybe has never deserved, pressed against the sins of battle. it's easy for a devil's body to knit itself back together again; easy for a hybrid to pop their arms back or slurp up their innards. human devil hunters don't fare so well, which is why the death rate is so high: and though he takes care not to endure anything beyond what is necessary, the path he's made across his body is obvious. it's a means to an end, a vessel to carry him to revenge, and nothing further; the scars that she wonders over have no grand story, like a hero who's been off fighting a dragon for the sake of the town. he fights to protect the people, but they sure as hell don't know anything about him.
neither does she. is it a kindness to spare her those details? to not bother with a name, in case she thinks of it later and regrets it? is it easier for her to forget about him if he just leaves her with all the grimy, filthy details--that he fights devil, that he'd thought her a devil, that he's unkind and lacking charm and tact?
it's somewhere near where her hands connect down near his hips, where her thumbs push in near the crests of his hipbones and his knees jerk, like they might just buckle at the contact; no one's ever touched him there, and the ticklish feeling, spiraling up into the pit of his stomach, is foreign and uncomfortable. his legs hit the end of the bed, but his weight teeters, well-balanced between his heels, before he stops himself from toppling backward.
a strange, warm feeling: like his head is swimming. )
It's Aki. ( maybe this is the part where he's decide he wants to leave a mark on her after all. ) My name. Hayakawa Aki.
( she might want to do it herself; he stands his ground, practiced hands moving to his belt to start working it open, a crackle of metal and leather as it gets tugged and pulled apart, dropped near the end of the bed.
he doesn't know if expectation means he should reach for her, too: or how to even maneuver her out of her skirt with all the fancy trails and enticing fishnets; but he does at least make an attempt, reaching forward so that he can feel for her waistband, trying to circle it with long fingertips to find some zipper or latch. )
robin shouldn't try to read any of it and spare him his privacy. the scars don't seem pleasant — obviously. what she could glean from touching them aren't likely to be pleasant either.
she touches him anyway. she reads his reactions. even now, harmony flows out of her in a slow, subtle tuning, some musicality to be found in the way her fingers map his body, a distant, emotional crescendo that must skew each heartbeat to feel as if it's from something else. and then suddenly it's calming, coaxing. he still feels like he's uncomfortable, and she can't blame him when she can see flashes of blood and vast, hungry mouths to go with every scar, how it's difficult to filter what must've once caused his injuries from how he might feel, now, with her hands on his marked skin.
there's knotting tension that feels almost formative as she's leafing through the corners of his mind. she must be trying to work it out of his psyche the way her thumb is working the knot of some muscle in his side, how she's... carefully... hooking into the waistband of his slacks with a little hitch of breathing for his hand landing somewhere on her hip in turn. )
... Mister Aki.
( a little laugh accompanies it, because she realizes it's uncanny, mister like there's any distance left between her and his half-naked body. )
Mister Hayakawa? ( but she tries it again, a little breathy this time, and thinks it has to be a kindness. otherwise helping him now, to save him from some curse and some poverty, isn't a kindness at all but an excuse. ) Or... do I call you Aki?
( she doesn't help him with her clothes. granted she doesn't bat his hand away either, and only turns a faint shade of red as he has to struggle; after all, it took more than that for her to figure out the corset, and she had been just as alone.
it isn't her focus. it's harder to think of what comes next when there's no sense of urgency, and there's only his blue eyes and his kindness and the feeling that he would do this for her, would do more for her, if she only asked. he's taken scars for less. she bites her lip. )
( maybe it's something in her eyes. something pretty, something that moves like waves do across the tide, where sand seems to scatter but never really goes away; trails and patterns of it, across a shore, where the water takes something away, but always returns to give something back, all the same.
he doesn't feel like they're scars that can be healed, or it could be that he's never taken inventory of the ones left deep below the skin, severed across a heart that beats only for revenge, for retribution, and nothing more. he hasn't had dreams since he'd been seven years old, ten years old, when he'd wanted for things and then, quite suddenly, had nothing left to want for.
but it's her eyes, maybe, or the soft patter of her breath across her own lips, or the way that her hair hangs around her face that gives him the sense of some kind of peace; her fingertips touch at him and he feels more want, than worry, feels more desire, than determination. she isn't afraid of him, surely, not anymore: he watches those feathers that whisper above her ears like they might tell him a secret.
but does she really want him? could someone really want him, a husk of a man, burdened by a life that he's so willing to give away?
her laugh makes him embarrassed, but not in a bad way, not in a way that gets in the way of anything else. because he wants to laugh, wants to shake his head, and instead just lets his chin duck, like she shouldn't be saying his name like that; she shouldn't be able to say it so warmly, pretty on her lips like it belongs there. abandoned, his fingers give up somewhere in the midst of tightened ribbons along the corsetted back of her clothing; she doesn't peel his slacks off, and he leaves them like that, for now.
wordless, he pulls his hands back, measures his weight, and sits neatly on the end of the bed, his knees spread: not to offer her some kind of lascivious offer, but more in case she would rather find purchase on his thighs, than the bed, than the floor, than anywhere else. )
If it's Robin, then it's Aki. ( he decides, with some low, quiet thread of amusement. ) Unless you like hearing something else.
( maybe it's his poor attempt at a joke. the furthest from charming. no dignity to be had, either, in implying she'd call out someone else's name in bed. in the short period of time that she's learning what makes aki aki, these fundamental truths are what she has to go by.
she knows all of that, right down to the pitter-patter of his current feelings, and it still doesn't really prepare her at all. robin blinks big and owlishly at the suggestion and doesn't catch on for a delayed beat. it takes a moment for the sheer idea of it to register, and then another two for her to react to it. )
...no, I don't think I'll do that, Mr. Hayakawa. ( so she says, shocked back into a hostess's polite mannerisms in the lilt of her riposte, a little pink in the face and maybe slightly defensive because what else is she to say about that...? and while she'd already been halfway to perching between his legs, no less?
but she's learning. there's no graceful way to initiate a one-night stand — is that really what this is? — or to figure out the laces of her corset now that it's as form-fitting as latex on her body, or to kick off her heels so that they don't drop onto the carpet with a mood-ruining clunk of noise as the mattress dips and squeaks under the weight of her stocking-clad knee. all of these distractions, and aki still looks at her with a strange patience. a kind sort of focus. and she already knows that none of this comes very naturally to him either.
to be honest, he does remind her of someone — but that's where the similarities must end. where aki had looked at her and saw a devil, robin had felt his odd warmth and had seen an — )
I'm not so much an angel, either, that I would want you to think of someone else right now, if I can help it...
( she offers honestly, and maybe it comes off soft and unsure even in the note of her own quiet assurance, because her gloved hands are still trailing aimlessly over the plane of aki's stomach until she's palming the edge of his waistband, fingers hooked there at his slacks again as she considers her next step.
wonders, idly, if he'd fall back onto the mattress the rest of the way if she pushed on his shoulder, even as she's already doing it. )
... I could... use it over your clothes, if you'd prefer.
( all it takes is another pass of his gaze to realize that he's stumbled--for not the first time. words have to be used so carefully because they're so delicate; once they're past his tongue, past his lips, there's nothing that he can do about them but double-down. he wishes, like most people do, that there would be a proper time to take certain things back: like maybe he could go back a good ten years and not say such damnable things, that he could be more mature, that he could say i love you and i care about you and know that the last thing his family thought about him was just that. but mistakes are made because they have to be learned from, and what he's learned is that his life ended, those many years ago, and something else grew and became an adult in the husk left behind.
she doesn't like it, whatever she read in his words. and while he's not usually one to clarify, it's her honest statement that makes him look up at her; a slow glance over her features, like he's studying, like he's trying to see something that may or may not be there.
his hands find her hips, but only to steady her--only to feel that she's really there, warm and still willing, warm and still alive despite his blunder. )
I'm not thinking of anyone else. ( he starts, and while that might be obvious, he doesn't make it sound like it is: patient, more earnest than correcting. ) I meant if there's a nickname you preferred, to your first name. That was all.
( there's nothing waiting for him, when his back hits the mattress, except the slight give of the expensive covers, the way the pressure at his spine does nothing to mitigate the heat that pools through his stomach at her touch, and it's one of the only times he's wondered if he should be ashamed of himself, when her fingertips work delicately at the waist of his slacks, as though trying to gauge where to go. ashamed of his interest, half-hard and wanting beneath the fabric, or if she knows what an angel really looks like, or how the light in the room halos her when he's flat on his back on the bed. of whether his hands can move, instead of brace her there like she's something that should be kept at a distance from someone like him.
the offer isn't unkind, but it also keeps that distance between them. is that better for her, or worse? he considers it, briefly, his gaze focused up on her face; those little wings aren't giving anything away, now, and maybe he's lost an opportunity that he didn't even realize he had. )
You can use it however you like. ( a part of him considers leaving it there: and then decides, against better judgment, to continue. )
But if I were using it on you, I would want you bare. Not just to touch, but to look at you.
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peacockstop2025-01-15 09:00 pm
no subject
but it could be worse. it could've gone differently, too, if he'd said no and she would've stayed anyway, let the pieces fall in the appropriate slots where they may otherwise. part of it isn't kindness, because part of her is still disbelieving. if they do this, then what do they really get from it? and what price do they really pay? songstress embroiled in a sex scandal, the headlines would say in the taglines of that pornographic paraphernalia. she thinks she'll pay the price eventually, somewhere down the line. most people do.
and it's still not worth someone else's punishment.
he walks up to her with that honed, respectable veneer of calm, and she offers him the gentle politeness of her full attention, her eyes kept respectfully on his face. he said he was boring, uncharming, and without dignity — and maybe it had been unfair to ask him when she's more than capable of putting that all together, when the chances of his refusal are next to none, with a personality like that. but then, his low, level voice, his hands seeping warmth into the slanting curve of her waist, his own flubbing tongue around a slip that sounds, frankly, subconscious are all interesting. charming. dignified enough.
she smiles at that, her face lighting up with a dust of pink to match how embarrassment slips into both of their mannerisms. mister devil hunter could be colder. mister devil hunter is too kind, and much kinder still, to not tell her his name or maybe even no. )
... Not quite.
( it's a quiet non-answer. her gaze finally drops, regarding him somewhere at collar-level as her hands lift up, popping open the first button of his dress shirt with very little flourish, almost domestic in the gesture as she sets about his previous bland attempt to take his clothes off.
she's going down the row of buttons, anyway, not quickly or slowly but evenly enough that the way she steps forward, how she's just as meticulous about it, might make him feel less like he's being herded back and more like it's just part of the process.
just like a dance, she thinks, with the proper steps to go about it. )
You're just very kind... It makes me feel like I'm taking advantage of it.
( and isn't that mutual? )
no subject
the step backwards, and the next, feels like they're tethered together; his fingers flex, squeezing at her waist, and if she's guiding him back towards the bed, he doesn't mind it. doesn't feel like he's on the offensive, but rather, more at her mercy. )
Would it help... ( he starts, then thinks against it---rather than leave his touch at her waist, both of his hands lift, a calloused shadow over the back of her hands; his fingers run over hers, sliding down her knuckles, gripping in at her wrists if only so that he can use the guidance to start encouraging her to pull his shirt tails out of the waist of his slacks. ) ...to tell you that you're pretty?
( no, that sounds juvenile. another embarrassed breath goes through his nose, irritated at himself. )
You're not unattractive. ( that's even worse. he continues. ) You're very attractive. I'm sure you've heard this before.
( his grip loosens; his hands slide, a brief touch along her upper arms before he drops away, leaving the rest of his shirt at her mercy. )
So it isn't 'taking advantage'. ( it feels--a little stupid, saying all this, but it's not going to change anything; it's not like it's some kind of weakness to admit it, or maybe it is, but he's willing to take the loss if it comes to it. ) I'm interested.
no subject
somehow. anyhow. even when, yes, it is a little silly. even when, yes, there are his long fingers caging each of her bird-boned wrists, and somehow she can sense his calluses through the fabric of her gloves as he maneuvers — not ungracefully — to get her to ruck up the fabric of his shirt.
it helps because he's still steady, his heartbeat even, even when hers is somewhere up in her throat. and it especially helps because he keeps running through his words until he trips up, and it tells her that he isn't as impassive as his expression makes him out to be, his cards and consent laid out on the table for her to do with what she will. )
... thank you. Though I'd hoped you were, at least a little.
( that depends, he'd tried teasing once. is the willing participant in the room with us right now?
she must be one in this narrowing space, in the end. her lashes flick down as she trails over the lean muscle of his body, considering the bare sight with soft, sudden attention. her hands drift then, less hesitation and more curiosity as she marks the lighter outline of an old scar, some splotchy keloid where the flesh and blood must have stitched over something terrible, making a path over his bare skin without much warning, without permission, without fanfare. but at least her gloved fingers are soft over the indentations between each of his ribs. there's just no way for her to know if that does anything for him.
well. except the one. )
Otherwise I don't think we'd be in this room together...
( later, if aki were to ask what was done to him, then robin would tell him the truth. that she's no devil, but that she can read his mind, that resonance sometimes feels like the sudden passing of a headache — clearing, clear-mindedness, and a multi-colored sensation like you're light-headed and standing up too quickly.
maybe that only sharpens the sensation of everything else: how she presses her thumbs against the crests of his hipbones until he might try to squirm away, or thinks about it, or literally anything until she digs her fingertips into the junction of his hips instead, guiding him back until his legs finally hit the edge of the bed. )
no subject
neither does she. is it a kindness to spare her those details? to not bother with a name, in case she thinks of it later and regrets it? is it easier for her to forget about him if he just leaves her with all the grimy, filthy details--that he fights devil, that he'd thought her a devil, that he's unkind and lacking charm and tact?
it's somewhere near where her hands connect down near his hips, where her thumbs push in near the crests of his hipbones and his knees jerk, like they might just buckle at the contact; no one's ever touched him there, and the ticklish feeling, spiraling up into the pit of his stomach, is foreign and uncomfortable. his legs hit the end of the bed, but his weight teeters, well-balanced between his heels, before he stops himself from toppling backward.
a strange, warm feeling: like his head is swimming. )
It's Aki. ( maybe this is the part where he's decide he wants to leave a mark on her after all. ) My name. Hayakawa Aki.
( she might want to do it herself; he stands his ground, practiced hands moving to his belt to start working it open, a crackle of metal and leather as it gets tugged and pulled apart, dropped near the end of the bed.
he doesn't know if expectation means he should reach for her, too: or how to even maneuver her out of her skirt with all the fancy trails and enticing fishnets; but he does at least make an attempt, reaching forward so that he can feel for her waistband, trying to circle it with long fingertips to find some zipper or latch. )
no subject
robin shouldn't try to read any of it and spare him his privacy. the scars don't seem pleasant — obviously. what she could glean from touching them aren't likely to be pleasant either.
she touches him anyway. she reads his reactions. even now, harmony flows out of her in a slow, subtle tuning, some musicality to be found in the way her fingers map his body, a distant, emotional crescendo that must skew each heartbeat to feel as if it's from something else. and then suddenly it's calming, coaxing. he still feels like he's uncomfortable, and she can't blame him when she can see flashes of blood and vast, hungry mouths to go with every scar, how it's difficult to filter what must've once caused his injuries from how he might feel, now, with her hands on his marked skin.
there's knotting tension that feels almost formative as she's leafing through the corners of his mind. she must be trying to work it out of his psyche the way her thumb is working the knot of some muscle in his side, how she's... carefully... hooking into the waistband of his slacks with a little hitch of breathing for his hand landing somewhere on her hip in turn. )
... Mister Aki.
( a little laugh accompanies it, because she realizes it's uncanny, mister like there's any distance left between her and his half-naked body. )
Mister Hayakawa? ( but she tries it again, a little breathy this time, and thinks it has to be a kindness. otherwise helping him now, to save him from some curse and some poverty, isn't a kindness at all but an excuse. ) Or... do I call you Aki?
( she doesn't help him with her clothes. granted she doesn't bat his hand away either, and only turns a faint shade of red as he has to struggle; after all, it took more than that for her to figure out the corset, and she had been just as alone.
it isn't her focus. it's harder to think of what comes next when there's no sense of urgency, and there's only his blue eyes and his kindness and the feeling that he would do this for her, would do more for her, if she only asked. he's taken scars for less. she bites her lip. )
Aki... could you please take a seat on the bed?
no subject
he doesn't feel like they're scars that can be healed, or it could be that he's never taken inventory of the ones left deep below the skin, severed across a heart that beats only for revenge, for retribution, and nothing more. he hasn't had dreams since he'd been seven years old, ten years old, when he'd wanted for things and then, quite suddenly, had nothing left to want for.
but it's her eyes, maybe, or the soft patter of her breath across her own lips, or the way that her hair hangs around her face that gives him the sense of some kind of peace; her fingertips touch at him and he feels more want, than worry, feels more desire, than determination. she isn't afraid of him, surely, not anymore: he watches those feathers that whisper above her ears like they might tell him a secret.
but does she really want him? could someone really want him, a husk of a man, burdened by a life that he's so willing to give away?
her laugh makes him embarrassed, but not in a bad way, not in a way that gets in the way of anything else. because he wants to laugh, wants to shake his head, and instead just lets his chin duck, like she shouldn't be saying his name like that; she shouldn't be able to say it so warmly, pretty on her lips like it belongs there. abandoned, his fingers give up somewhere in the midst of tightened ribbons along the corsetted back of her clothing; she doesn't peel his slacks off, and he leaves them like that, for now.
wordless, he pulls his hands back, measures his weight, and sits neatly on the end of the bed, his knees spread: not to offer her some kind of lascivious offer, but more in case she would rather find purchase on his thighs, than the bed, than the floor, than anywhere else. )
If it's Robin, then it's Aki. ( he decides, with some low, quiet thread of amusement. ) Unless you like hearing something else.
no subject
she knows all of that, right down to the pitter-patter of his current feelings, and it still doesn't really prepare her at all. robin blinks big and owlishly at the suggestion and doesn't catch on for a delayed beat. it takes a moment for the sheer idea of it to register, and then another two for her to react to it. )
...no, I don't think I'll do that, Mr. Hayakawa. ( so she says, shocked back into a hostess's polite mannerisms in the lilt of her riposte, a little pink in the face and maybe slightly defensive because what else is she to say about that...? and while she'd already been halfway to perching between his legs, no less?
but she's learning. there's no graceful way to initiate a one-night stand — is that really what this is? — or to figure out the laces of her corset now that it's as form-fitting as latex on her body, or to kick off her heels so that they don't drop onto the carpet with a mood-ruining clunk of noise as the mattress dips and squeaks under the weight of her stocking-clad knee. all of these distractions, and aki still looks at her with a strange patience. a kind sort of focus. and she already knows that none of this comes very naturally to him either.
to be honest, he does remind her of someone — but that's where the similarities must end. where aki had looked at her and saw a devil, robin had felt his odd warmth and had seen an — )
I'm not so much an angel, either, that I would want you to think of someone else right now, if I can help it...
( she offers honestly, and maybe it comes off soft and unsure even in the note of her own quiet assurance, because her gloved hands are still trailing aimlessly over the plane of aki's stomach until she's palming the edge of his waistband, fingers hooked there at his slacks again as she considers her next step.
wonders, idly, if he'd fall back onto the mattress the rest of the way if she pushed on his shoulder, even as she's already doing it. )
... I could... use it over your clothes, if you'd prefer.
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she doesn't like it, whatever she read in his words. and while he's not usually one to clarify, it's her honest statement that makes him look up at her; a slow glance over her features, like he's studying, like he's trying to see something that may or may not be there.
his hands find her hips, but only to steady her--only to feel that she's really there, warm and still willing, warm and still alive despite his blunder. )
I'm not thinking of anyone else. ( he starts, and while that might be obvious, he doesn't make it sound like it is: patient, more earnest than correcting. ) I meant if there's a nickname you preferred, to your first name. That was all.
( there's nothing waiting for him, when his back hits the mattress, except the slight give of the expensive covers, the way the pressure at his spine does nothing to mitigate the heat that pools through his stomach at her touch, and it's one of the only times he's wondered if he should be ashamed of himself, when her fingertips work delicately at the waist of his slacks, as though trying to gauge where to go. ashamed of his interest, half-hard and wanting beneath the fabric, or if she knows what an angel really looks like, or how the light in the room halos her when he's flat on his back on the bed. of whether his hands can move, instead of brace her there like she's something that should be kept at a distance from someone like him.
the offer isn't unkind, but it also keeps that distance between them. is that better for her, or worse? he considers it, briefly, his gaze focused up on her face; those little wings aren't giving anything away, now, and maybe he's lost an opportunity that he didn't even realize he had. )
You can use it however you like. ( a part of him considers leaving it there: and then decides, against better judgment, to continue. )
But if I were using it on you, I would want you bare. Not just to touch, but to look at you.
( permission, or a confession: or both. )